Local artist to showcase new wire sculpture at Athens music festival

Noah Saunders, the Athens-based artist who has exhibited his award-winning wire art from Europe to California, will unveil his largest sculpture to date during a musical event planned for Saturday in Athens.

The piece, “Sheltering in –En Vie,” will be exhibited during the FoxSaid Music Festival at the Athens Cotton Press, 149 Oneta St.

The festival, running from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., features folk musicians, a beer garden, food trucks, events for kids, and an artist market. Tickets are required.

Saunders’ new sculpture that took a year to bend into place is another step in his career that follows a recent adventure to the metropolis of Los Angeles.

The trip was originally planned for an exhibit he was offered at the Bonhams Auction House, a nationwide business that deals in art of all sorts. During the process of planning his trip to L.A., he also gained an opportunity to exhibit at the Creature Comforts Brewery that opened in L.A. about a year ago.

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Creature Comforts is an Athens-based brewery founded 10 years ago that has now expanded its brewery products to the West Coast.

Once Saunders reached the Pacific side of the U.S., he spent about 100 days in L.A. exhibiting his work and exploring the city’s artworld. In a recent interview, Saunders said he was proud his trip was made possible through local donations.

The Athens Art and Frame partnered with the Athens Area Arts Council to provide the artist with grants totaling $3,500.

“When I was in L.A., people would literally tear up when I told them my trip was made possible through the love and support of people in Athens,” he said. “That kind of support doesn’t exist in some of these bigger cities.”

Saunders, who has long promoted the art scene in Athens, said he needed financial support to help ship his artwork to the West Coast. The first to help was the Kate Morrissey Band in Athens, which held a concert. It raised about $2,500 to cover the shipping fee.

During his exhibition in L.A., people for the first time were able to view his wire sculptures, a unique type of artwork rarely seen in art exhibits.

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Among those viewing for the first time was a representative of the Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts gallery in the city’s downtown. As a result, Saunders was given two showings at the gallery, which its website notes has “a keen eye for emerging artists.”

He made another contact at the Getty Museum in L.A., Joshua Ramirez, who works with a curatorial program at UCLA. Ramirez is preparing the artist’s essay for the sculpture that will be unveiled Saturday at FoxSaid.

A unique twist to the “Sheltering in – En Vie” piece is enabled through the use of a powerful Bigblue flashlight, a brand used by scuba divers. The light casts a shadow that gives it another dimension of existence. The company provided three flashlights for the event, Saunders said.

The sculpture was inspired several years ago by a friend of Saunders’ who was facing eviction from his apartment in Argentina, the artist explained.

“He was ashamed to ask (for money), but I said I’d advance the money to you to be my model,” Saunders said.

The man sent thousands of screenshots of himself. Saunders said he whittled it down to four poses for the sculpture.

“I got a government grant and was able to live on that for a year. I worked on the sculpture about eight hours a day for 12 months,” he said. “I had the time and freedom to do what is truly possible with this wire thing.”

Saunders, an Atlanta native who has created and experimented with wire art for three decades, said he began with the eyes.

“I created eyeballs of different sizes until I found the exact perfect one where the lines creating the eyes were natural and real,” he said, explaining this enabled him to figure the size of the face.

As a side note to his trip, Saunders explained he lived in a tiny room or in what is called an SOL, or single occupancy living space, in the Little Tokyo section of L.A.

As if he was the proverbial ‘starving artist,’ he needed money for food. He enjoyed a type of Japanese chocolate called Meiji that was individually wrapped in pieces of gold foil.

A friend suggested he draw on the wrappers and sell them.  So, he drew self-portraits.

“I posted them for sale at $30 a wrapper, which represented one day’s food budget,” he said. “I sold at least 100 of them and that’s how I funded the rest of my daily food needs.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Artist showcases wire artwork at FoxSaid Music Festival in Athens